When someone lobs a grenade in my direction, I get a little warning icon on my HUD. However, I've never been able to determine how severe the danger is - sometimes I lose almost all my shields and many of my bars of health, and other times I barely take damage when it goes off.

Is there some information encoded in the warning icon that would tell me how close the grenade is, and how I should react to it?

2 Answers
2

The Grenade indicator is not granular enough to give a good estimate of the potential "lethality" of any given grenade. Instead, it is a simple boolean indicating whether or not you're in range of some of the damage.

If you can see the grenade indicator, you will take damage when it goes off - but it won't tell you how much in advance.

How much damage you take is based on how close you are to the grenade when it goes off. If you're directly on top of it when it blows, kiss your rear goodbye. The further you are away from it the less damage to take. At it's smallest it will only pop your shields. Note how big the size of the grenade indicator. If it's the size of a fist, get away from it fast! The smaller it is, the further you are away from it. If you're looking right at it, the indicator will be on the ground. If you can't see the indicator then you're safe.

The grenade is a tactic used by Cerberus and Cannibals to force players out of cover so if you seem one toss one, keep an eye on your exit path or you might find yourself uncomfortably close to a melee opponent or caught in a kill box.